Mieville's thoughts... - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

tumhalad2 · 09-04-2010, 03:25 AM

A misunderstanding:

Indeed, in the past, I did post a thread about David Brin's ideas in which I expressed some loss of faith, if you like, so I can see why you may have thought that. Nonetheles, that was some years ago now, and I'm over it.

This time around, however, I'm posting because I came across the quote and thought it had some interesting things to say. Sure, alot of these people say similar things, but Mieville is interesting because of where his focus is - on Tolkien's On Fairy Story's essay, for example, and the implicit idea that literature should afford some sort of "challenge" to readers, presumably by not doing what Tolkien did and offer a conciliatory ending. I'm not hugely familiar with On Fairy Stories; is this a good or accurate formulation of Tolkien's ideas, or are they misconstrued?

09-04-2010, 03:25 AM	#6
tumhalad2 Haunting Spirit Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 95	A misunderstanding: Indeed, in the past, I did post a thread about David Brin's ideas in which I expressed some loss of faith, if you like, so I can see why you may have thought that. Nonetheles, that was some years ago now, and I'm over it. This time around, however, I'm posting because I came across the quote and thought it had some interesting things to say. Sure, alot of these people say similar things, but Mieville is interesting because of where his focus is - on Tolkien's On Fairy Story's essay, for example, and the implicit idea that literature should afford some sort of "challenge" to readers, presumably by not doing what Tolkien did and offer a conciliatory ending. I'm not hugely familiar with On Fairy Stories; is this a good or accurate formulation of Tolkien's ideas, or are they misconstrued?